


While Sherlock's Away...

by Ann1215



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, John's a bit of a potty mouth, Mild Language, Sherlock Cares, mild violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-26
Updated: 2013-04-26
Packaged: 2017-12-09 13:55:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/774964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ann1215/pseuds/Ann1215
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John spends a day without Sherlock, who has gone on a trip.</p><p>Set pre-Reichenbach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	While Sherlock's Away...

**Author's Note:**

> So, this was birthed from a prompt that a friend gave me to kick my procrastinating ass, as I haven't written anything concrete in months. Hi Dan, if you're reading.
> 
> The prompt was: A day in John Watson's life while Sherlock is away on a trip.
> 
> Unbetaed and unbritpicked.

 

                When John entered 221B late that evening after a particularly horrendous shift at the clinic involving tiny infants who were hell bent on piercing his eardrums, vomit that had suspicious-looking pink chunks and a remarkably terrifying old woman who he wasn’t sure was flirting or condemning him, he wasn’t exactly suspecting a neat flat. Neither did he suspect the whirlwind that had apparently tore through the living room, but at this point he was more than a bit tired to care. So he carefully trod among the stacks of books that had seemed to materialise while he was at work, as well as the black files scattered around the room in various places (there was one wedged between where the skull recently was on the mantel- _Mrs Hudson must have taken it again_ -and the clock, and he was willing to bet there were more than a few hidden under the sofa) and collapsed heavily in his armchair.

                About two minutes later there was a muffled shout from Sherlock’s bedroom. “John! Where's my red shirt?”

                “Did you put it in the laundry?” John asked casually, content to just shout back from his spot in the chair.

                There were a few moments of silence, and then Sherlock appeared in the hallway leading to the living room in his usual pyjamas and dressing gown ensemble, his brow furrowed. “What laundry?”

                John lifted his head to glance at him, and then snorted, settling back into the chair. “There’s your answer, then. Why’d you need it anyway?”

                Sherlock harrumphed, and then strode into the living room, gracefully sidestepping the books and the files to stand before the window, hands on hips and rolled his eyes, though John wasn’t completely sure at what. “Case.”

                “Case?” John repeated, raising an eyebrow at him. “We have a new case?” There were no new hits on his blog, as far as he knew, and both of them knew no one would go through Sherlock’s blog for a case these days.

                Sherlock sighed, probably annoyed at John’s repetition but didn’t say anything else except, “You don’t. I do. Mycroft,” he spat out, and John’s mouth formed an ‘O’ in comprehension, but he still wasn’t sure why Sherlock had to go alone. “Too confidential, even I don’t know where I’m going.” It was obvious Sherlock was rather rankled at being unable to deduce the location and it nearly soothed John’s slightly bruised feelings. They’d gone on Mycroft’s cases a few times, but this was the first that John wasn’t going with Sherlock, and he wasn’t completely sure how to feel about that, given how dangerous the cases usually were. “Probably a small European nation, but as I don’t have any need for current political news, I am at my brother’s mercy.”

                “So you’re packing now?”

                Sherlock seemed startled at the question and stared at John for a second before blinking rapidly, and then shook his head, dark curls bouncing. “Oh, no, of course not. They’ll have a bag for me; I just needed to know where my red shirt was.” He looked around quickly, and then glanced back at the mantel. “My skull’s been taken again.” With that he flounced away from the window, and managed to walk through the minefield of books and files without a single thing falling over. The door was still open when John had walked in earlier so Sherlock practically leapt down the stairs, calling out to Mrs Hudson about his red shirt and the missing skull.

 

                John bid his flatmate farewell when he left their home late that night, nearly past 3am. “Have a safe trip, Sherlock,” he yawned, badly mangling his friend’s name in the process.

                “Safe is dull, John.” Sherlock rolled his eyes, but a corner of his lips lifted up in a smirk. “Don’t worry, doctor. I’ll be fine. Go to bed now.”

                “Don’t jinx it, mate.”

 

                The morning after Sherlock left for Mycroft’s case, John woke up early despite the few hours of sleep and automatically made two cups of tea before remembering Sherlock’s absence. At that thought he smiled a bit, because the flat was rarely this quiet unless Sherlock was in one of his sleep comas after a string of intense cases. He was really going to enjoy the next few days. Speaking of which, he wasn’t sure how long his friend would be away. After taking a luxuriously long shower without any of the random interruptions he was sadly accustomed to, John shot off a text to Sherlock as he sat down with the morning paper, still in his bathrobe.

 

                 _When are you coming back?_

_JW_

                John wasn’t expecting the other man to reply instantly, but he did and John smiled, pleasantly surprised.

 

                 _Soon. This case is tiresome._

_SH_

_Haha. Timeframe, Sherlock._

_JW_

_Four days at the most. Apologies, John, I must go now. The other man’s just entered the basement._

_SH_

                John raised an eyebrow at that, and shook his head in exasperated fondness.

 

                 _Be careful then, you twat. See you in four days._

_JW_

 

                It was five o’clock in the afternoon on the day after Sherlock left, and John Watson was feeling almost…  _Bored._  He had done the shopping earlier with minimal hassle, and with his friend not in town the groceries were safe for at least a few days. Mrs Hudson had invited him to tea and he’d been too polite to refuse, even though there was a subtle itch under his skin and he felt like a jog around the park would do him a bit better than consumption of various pastries. It was not as if he was incapable of surviving without his mad, brilliant detective of a friend, of course not. John fucking Hamish Watson has gone through worse and lived, and it was merely a testament to how much better his life was that all he had to handle was just a few days of quiet, of tea with Mrs Hudson, and actually cooking meals for himself for once without the stress and adrenaline of a new and difficult case to solve.

                With that being said, he reanalysed his feelings and concluded that he wasn’t almost bored; he was  _already bored_.

                Sherlock hadn’t replied him from early that morning, and his next shift wasn’t until Wednesday, which was two days later and two days too long for an excuse to get out of the empty, neat, bloody  _quiet_  flat. Just as he was contemplating on texting Mike or Greg for drinks at the pub, the latter’s name appeared on his phone and John picked up the call, grinning in barely suppressed relief.

                “Hey, Greg.”

                “John, are you and Sherlock available tonight?” Greg’s voice sounded harried and a bit hopeful, and John’s pulse spiked at the thought of something more to do than just drinking several pints together and arguing together over the football.

                “Sherlock left for a case Mycroft gave him last night, but I’ve got nothing on. Why?” John bit his lip as he waited for the DI’s reply, quietly hoping the answer would be to his liking.

                “He left on his own? Wow, okay. Well, I didn’t want to bother you two at first, since it’s not a very difficult case, but two of my men aren’t able to make it for a stake-out tonight; both on desk jobs after breaking a couple of bones two weeks ago in our more… Physical co-op.” John cringed, feeling a bit sorry for the poor bastards. “Anyway, I was wondering whether you could help us out with the stake-out tonight? We could use another pair of hands and eyes.”

                 _God, yes._  “Yeah, I reckon I could. Text me the details?”   

 

               

                Eight hours later John was creeping around in a darkened factory, trying as much as he could to not blindly chase the suspects he and Greg’s team were monitoring just half an hour ago, boredom as far away from his mind as possible. The abandoned building was located conveniently around the corner when the men spotted one of them and ran away from the blocks of flats nearby, one of which they were staying in before all hell broke loose. John knew at least two of Greg’s men were in the warehouse with him, as well as the suspects, and he sincerely hoped there would be no injuries tonight, given how many shots had been fired already.

                The factory was old, and rusty equipment littered the ground floor; the windows were grimy and hardly let in any of the moonlight, causing him to hide behind the equipment and stay still for long seconds before he could take a few more steps. John didn’t want to risk taking out his phone, lest the light from the screen gave him away, so all lines of communication were cut off for him. He held his gun at his side as he slinked between the huge pieces of metal around him, his breathing calm and even as the scatter of footsteps alerted him that somebody was less than twenty feet away from him. John quietly made his way towards the source of the sound, which had gone quiet now. As he got closer, luck decided to be on his side and he could see a faint outline of a shadow-no, two shadows, right around the corner.

                 _One. Two. Th-_

                It was then that the two shadows moved, swiftly enough to inform John that his presence had been discovered and they were coming out of their hiding place now and headed straight for John.

                The first, a slightly overweight man with about half a head of advantage over John came barrelling at him first, and John was rather pleased to see the other man had no sort of weapon to speak of. He neatly side-stepped as the suspect (it was looking quite likely that they were more than suspects by now) reached his large hands out to grab him by the throat and turned out, promptly knocking the back of his head with the butt of his gun. In the chaos he’d forgotten for a bit about the other man, but the punch to his cheekbone quickly reminded him of that and he staggered slightly before righting himself, just in time to dodge the next hit. John glanced at the man, who seemed nimbler than his associate, judging by how quick he was throwing his blows, and there was barely enough space to manoeuvre properly, let alone enough light to see. Just as he was finding an opening in between evading his opponent’s hits, the ringing sounds of gunfire echoed around them and John’s blood instantly ran cold.

                “Fucking hell, great fucking idea,” he muttered, and quickly threw a punch that broke the other man’s nose, judging from the loud crack and the shriek he emitted. As he bowled over, John used the opportunity to knock him out cold, incapacitating him like he did with his partner. The gunshots were still continuing.

                 _Oh god, those bastards, do they not know how fucking dangerous the ricochets would be-_ and he sucked in a gasp as one of the bullets bounded off right beside his left arm and embedded itself into the wall less than a second later.  _Fucking hell_. “To hell with it,” and with that, John took out his phone and urgently called the DI in charge of the whole damn operation.

                Surprisingly he picked up on the second ring and Greg’s voice was loud in his ear as he shouted, “John, shit, where the hell are you?”

                “Inside the goddamn factory, what the fuck’s going on with the gunshots?” He replied, ducking around a machine that seemed to have broken into two, and trying to get his sense of direction back in order to get out of the bloody place.

                Greg exhaled shakily, and answered, “Somebody opened fire, one of the suspects; at least three of my men are still in there with you, I don’t know how many of the other suspects have been incapacitated-“

                “At least two of them are,” John said dryly.

                “Well, then there’s at least two more running around in that place. You’ll-“

                “I’ll stick to the edges; at least the gun’s bound to run out of bullets sometime soon.”

                There was a pause, and John sighed. “At least both of them are firing. Fucking amazing. Okay, I think I may be close to the entrance.”

                “Alright, see you soon.” With that John placed his phone back in his pocket, his gun in the waistband of his trousers at the small of his back and ran towards the nearest wall he could find about twelve feet away. He breathed a sigh of relief when his body managed to escape from being riddled by any stray bullets.  As quick as he could, he ran along the side, ducking every so often when a bullet came to close for comfort.  _Shit, they’re not any old handguns-I thought they’d be finished already_. Just as John caught sight of the open entrance, hidden behind a large worktable, the gunshots stopped all of a sudden and he paused in his tracks. For a few moments there was only absolute silence punctuated by his too-heavy breathing and his too-loud pounding heart, pulse ringing in his ears.

                And then he turned around and groaned as a man came sprinting towards him with a fucking wooden plank the length of his arm, and evaded the wild swing, but not fast enough as it caught his right shoulder, causing him to let out a pained grunt and fall to his side. Before he could roll away from the ambitious batter’s next swing, the man in question unexpectedly swung sideways, hovering for half a second, before collapsing in a heap.

                Greg grinned at him from behind where the man had previously stood, and held out a hand to John. “You’re welcome, mate.”

                John snorted, and took the hand.

 

 

                 _Two days, I am leaving this infernal hellhole in two days._

_SH_

_I suppose you were too inconvenienced to reply me. I’ve caught the suspect already, I’m going home tomorrow. Mycroft can bloody well do his own paperwork._

_SH_      

_John, it’s been four hours. Why aren’t you replying my texts?_

_SH_

_Damn it, you went to help Lestrade with his little operation, didn’t you?_

_SH_

_I do hope you remember the first part of your last text to me, because that is my advice to you now._

_SH_

_My god, John, I fail to see why the **hell**_ _are you not replying me yet._

_SH_

                 _Sorry, sorry. Calm down, would you? I’m fine, helped Greg a bit, yeah. That’s good news then, I’ll see you tomorrow?_

_JW_

_Tomorrow then._

_SH_

 

                When Sherlock came home the next evening, he glanced at John’s bruised face and his slightly stiff posture, and resolved to never leave the good doctor on his own again for too long if he could help it. Mycroft and his ‘confidential’ cases could bloody well suck on it.

                    

                  

               

               

                 

                 

**Author's Note:**

> So I pretty much took the prompt and ran away with it with little regard to how real police work is actually carried out. Blame TV for that. So, thoughts?


End file.
